Two years after vowing to care for her ill father, Anne Barrowclough reflects on the emotional cost of that decision

I knew what to expect when I let myself into my father’s flat and saw the blood spotting the hall like droplets of ink. Dad was doubled up with pain, the bandages that dress his leg ulcers scattered on the floor. The flesh of the leg was hanging in ribbons and he had torn the skin off his foot, so it resembled a lump of raw meat.

He looked bewildered at my horrified cry. “I didn’t do anything,” he said, like a naughty boy. And then: “It was itching so badly . . .”